Mangrove / Macro / Softie lagoon - 20 long

[drexel]

Reach out to @jamie1210 she raised a bunch of onyx percs during covid and was pretty successful. I have a pair from her first two batches. I talked to her briefly about the process, but I think it's much easier now than it was years ago. Plus, all the different sizes of TDO make it easier and quicker to get them on dry food, so rotifers are only necessary for a short period of time.

 

[dansyr]

Reach out to @jamie1210 she raised a bunch of onyx percs during covid and was pretty successful. I have a pair from her first two batches. I talked to her briefly about the process, but I think it's much easier now than it was years ago. Plus, all the different sizes of TDO make it easier and quicker to get them on dry food, so rotifers are only necessary for a short period of time.

Oh that's a great idea I'll shoot her a PM. And I think she actually dropped by this thread at one point, maybe we will get a return visit Clutch still seems to be there but hard to keep track of, they laid right on the corner seam and it's always covered by anemone too (which is the point i guess).

Speaking of TDO, what are your thoughts on Golden Pearls vs TDO? I have basically the whole range, a friend who left town gave me TDO 100um through the 800-1200 so i have basically the whole size range, I just don't know if it's as nutritionally complete.

 

[drexel]

Oh that's a great idea I'll shoot her a PM. And I think she actually dropped by this thread at one point, maybe we will get a return visit Clutch still seems to be there but hard to keep track of, they laid right on the corner seam and it's always covered by anemone too (which is the point i guess).

Speaking of TDO, what are your thoughts on Golden Pearls vs TDO? I have basically the whole range, a friend who left town gave me TDO 100um through the 800-1200 so i have basically the whole size range, I just don't know if it's as nutritionally complete.

TDO is my primary pellet food that I feed and is what most breeders use. It's really a complete food and their range of sizes makes it easy to feed it to various fish. I've been feeding it for a long time and I've been able to get every fish to eat it, minus a few "live" feeders. My Anthias and fusilier damsels go nuts for it (they also love flakes too). I've never used Golden Pearls, so can't help you there. The F1's that I got from Jamie have just started to lay eggs and I would love to raise their fry (and my main ocellaris) at some point. If I get some time over the holidays this year, maybe I'll give it a go? I have clownfish breeding book if you want to borrow it? It's the one by Joyce Wilkerson.

 

[dansyr]

TDO is my primary pellet food that I feed and is what most breeders use. It's really a complete food and their range of sizes makes it easy to feed it to various fish. I've been feeding it for a long time and I've been able to get every fish to eat it, minus a few "live" feeders. My Anthias and fusilier damsels go nuts for it (they also love flakes too). I've never used Golden Pearls, so can't help you there. The F1's that I got from Jamie have just started to lay eggs and I would love to raise their fry (and my main ocellaris) at some point. If I get some time over the holidays this year, maybe I'll give it a go? I have clownfish breeding book if you want to borrow it? It's the one by Joyce Wilkerson.

I really need to get some TDO i just go through food so slow with how few fish I have, and ended up with golden pearls.

Thats a great book, someone gave us that as a kid and i read it so many times. I may take you up on that when i get a chance to head out that way. For now working off a decent memory of the rough timing from having read that way back when. And working off some journals for detail on when to wean from rots etc.

I'm just very concerned (beyond mortality from nutrition or swings etc) about deficiencies making them look "captive bred" deformities you know? like how to not screw up skull from too big food too fast.

 

[jamie1210]

I really need to get some TDO i just go through food so slow with how few fish I have, and ended up with golden pearls.

Thats a great book, someone gave us that as a kid and i read it so many times. I may take you up on that when i get a chance to head out that way. For now working off a decent memory of the rough timing from having read that way back when. And working off some journals for detail on when to wean from rots etc.

I'm just very concerned (beyond mortality from nutrition or swings etc) about deficiencies making them look "captive bred" deformities you know? like how to not screw up skull from too big food too fast.

Congrats on your skunks laying eggs! I'm always admiring your tank + clowns whenever you give an update because they're not as commonly kept as the percs

I think in an earlier post you mentioned something about using nannochloropsis only? I don't think it's enough to support them. The first few days of development are vital to their future health, so I would wait until you have all of your supplies ready to go before diving in. I did rotifers for a few days followed by transitioning to TDO. Oh, and make sure that your rotifers are not starving when you feed the fry. Make sure that they themselves are fat haha.

TDO is my primary pellet food that I feed and is what most breeders use. It's really a complete food and their range of sizes makes it easy to feed it to various fish. I've been feeding it for a long time and I've been able to get every fish to eat it, minus a few "live" feeders. My Anthias and fusilier damsels go nuts for it (they also love flakes too). I've never used Golden Pearls, so can't help you there. The F1's that I got from Jamie have just started to lay eggs and I would love to raise their fry (and my main ocellaris) at some point. If I get some time over the holidays this year, maybe I'll give it a go? I have clownfish breeding book if you want to borrow it? It's the one by Joyce Wilkerson.

I'm so excited to hear that the pair you got from me started laying eggs! Can't believe it's been 4-5 years. Thanks for the update! :O

 

[dansyr]

Congrats on your skunks laying eggs! I'm always admiring your tank + clowns whenever you give an update because they're not as commonly kept as the percs

I think in an earlier post you mentioned something about using nannochloropsis only? I don't think it's enough to support them. The first few days of development are vital to their future health, so I would wait until you have all of your supplies ready to go before diving in. I did rotifers for a few days followed by transitioning to TDO. Oh, and make sure that your rotifers are not starving when you feed the fry. Make sure that they themselves are fat haha.




I'm so excited to hear that the pair you got from me started laying eggs! Can't believe it's been 4-5 years. Thanks for the update! :O

Thank you!

Sorry I should have specified better, I'm wondering if fry tank can be rotifers but only nanno as the phytoplankton tinting the water and being food for rotifers in fry tank. My rotifer culture is going to be growing on RGComplete (gets in tomorrow) so that should be hopefully a very nutritious blend and the rots harvested will be rich. I'm mostly concerned about them losing nutrition in the fry tank. Does that change anything, or would you recommend a commercial phyto blend for fry tank too?

Do you have thoughts on the 24h vs 12h light scheme?

 

[jamie1210]

Thank you!

Sorry I should have specified better, I'm wondering if fry tank can be rotifers but only nanno as the phytoplankton tinting the water and being food for rotifers in fry tank. My rotifer culture is going to be growing on RGComplete (gets in tomorrow) so that should be hopefully a very nutritious blend and the rots harvested will be rich. I'm mostly concerned about them losing nutrition in the fry tank. Does that change anything, or would you recommend a commercial phyto blend for fry tank too?

Do you have thoughts on the 24h vs 12h light scheme?

Yes, I had rotifers in the fry tank with tinted water. That way, the rotifers can be continuously eating. I remember having to use an airline tube to siphon out waste/detritus every evening into a small container and then pouring back any fry that were accidentally sucked up....it was so much work! lol. Another tip would be to have 2 buckets of rotifers going. You never know when a culture's going to crash for whatever reason.

As for the lights, I believe I had the lights on for 24 hours for 1 or 2 days and then I switched to regular darkness at night.

Good luck with this project and keep us posted! If I remember correctly from Joyce Wilkerson's book, she wrote that that skunks are the most challenging to raise (I think Clarkii's are the easiest?), so I would love to hear how this goes!

 

[dansyr]

Yes, I had rotifers in the fry tank with tinted water. That way, the rotifers can be continuously eating. I remember having to use an airline tube to siphon out waste/detritus every evening into a small container and then pouring back any fry that were accidentally sucked up....it was so much work! lol. Another tip would be to have 2 buckets of rotifers going. You never know when a culture's going to crash for whatever reason.

As for the lights, I believe I had the lights on for 24 hours for 1 or 2 days and then I switched to regular darkness at night.

Good luck with this project and keep us posted! If I remember correctly from Joyce Wilkerson's book, she wrote that that skunks are the most challenging to raise (I think Clarkii's are the easiest?), so I would love to hear how this goes!

Thank you, this is invaluable input! I will keep updates going for sure, and I'm sure more questions will pop up as things go along. Planning on 2 buckets of rotifers going (possibly different sizes) and get a fridge stock. Plan is to keep phyto in the garage (where it's been) to not accidentally contaminate that, i have one shelf system with some copepod culture that I don't care too much if it gets contaminated, and I have permission to temporarily set up a new rack a couple feet away from that for rots, fry tank, and pre-mixed roti water to make that part easier.

Yes, I remember reading that about pink skunks (and is corroborated by the seeming lack of journals of people who have bred them). It's weird, I know they're less common but they don't seem THAT uncommon. What are the second-hardes, it was something unexpected if i remember, like maroons or tomatos?

 

[dansyr]

The clown eggs are still going, and they're developing nicely being more elongated. Day 4, with them being laid on day 0. Anemone shrunk briefly enough for me to get a very blurry photo, there are more underneath the anemone. But not too many, i would guess total currently is like in the 50-100 range? so not super optimistic but looking forward to shaking out the kinks on this batch hopefully.

The clowns are very dumb, one pane of glass is clean, one is never scraped and of couse they chose the one where the pane wasnt scraped so its such a mess and hard to get contrast. Oh well. Hopefully as they lay better and more numerous clutches they pick better spots.

 

[drexel]

Mine have always laid the eggs on algae covered areas, mainly the back panel of the tank. When they were in the 22g, then would lay them right on the front glass where I couldn't clean, so don't hold your breath. They should start to be more consistent as they lay more and more eggs. I do get smaller batches sometimes, but they're usually the same size or close to it. It might come down to how much I overfeed them.

 

[dansyr]

yeah i'm actually kind of excited to watch this pair maturing and figuring it out. every other clown i've cared for has either been single to keep violence down or has always been plenty old.

Speaking of violence so far this pair has been awesome. They let the dragonet hunt the glass for pods near the anemone, even go over the anemone and they don't get aggro. And I can have my hands in the tank during both clutches so far and they are very alert but not aggressive. I literally had to brush the anemone a bit because codium ball got loose and needed to be rewedged, and all i got was a tail swat from the female, which isn't really different from non-egg times.

 

[dansyr]

Tonight is day 8 and the larvae look pretty well formed so I will be preparing to catch them tonight. Where they are it's fully shadowed always so its hard to tell how developed the eyes are. If it's tomorrow that would be great.

Bad news the bucket of rotifers lost some density when I checked this morning, the density was increasing last I checked ~thurs evening. But the backup small culture of rotifers is doing well so I did a ~40% WC but only added back 20% to concentrate in case it was too dilute and sieved during WC to retain the rots and add back. Also added some from small culture vessel to hopefully boost it. So if hatch is not tonight that would be convenient from a rotifer perspective, but inconveneient from a workweek perspective.

This is current clown town tower setup

 

[drexel]

Here's to everything working out in your favor.

 

[dansyr]

The clowns hatched last night! 10 days (oct 4 to oct 14th). The goby and critters certainly got their share I think, when I started catching around 1.5hrs after dark there werent many. But I caught around 5-6 and got them in the fry tank with rotifers and phyto. I have zero expectations this round being so few to start with, and rotifer density is low, but this will be a good shakeout run.

At least 4 fry made it through the night.

 

[drexel]

You might want to try a ceramic tile next to the clowns in hopes they lay their eggs on it. It will make transfers much easier.

 

[dansyr]

Day 6, still have a clown fry left. Possibly two, difficult to tell. This is why you don't start with 6, folks. But they're cute! and active and have a good feeding response to adding rotifers. The current one has a little golden yellow patch in belly, so I hope that means it's been eating the 100um Golden Pearls.

Clowns laid eggs again today, so this is Day 0 on next batch, that should theoretically hatch around the 30th. Hopefully now that rotifer production is going better, this next clutch will be more successful.

 

[Jimbo327]

I love reading your updates. Always so interesting!

 

[drexel]

Nice! Hopefully the little ones hang on.

 

[dansyr]

Thanks guys. its been fun, the shrimp are fun from the contraption building side but these lil guys are a lot of fun. Otherwise the tank is basically along in its normal shape so I guess this is a clownfish journal in addition to a tank journal.

 

[dansyr]

Calling time of death on this run at day 9 as I haven't seen the survivor all day. Puzzled why, the last one was going strong, it had gained a lot of size and was eating golden pearls and chasing baby brine shrimp the night before. Nice round, full stomach.

Plans for the next batch
- obviously get higher rotifer densities and more fry to start with
- don't introduce baby brine shrimp until day 14 or meta, whichever comes first
- keep 24h light on past day 9 (I had severely dimmed light the night of 7th and 8th with no seeming ill effects, last night was first night truly dark)

Next round should hatch in 4-6 days so looking forward to the redemption run.